Time to release parents as a business resource

It’s a challenge that all working parents face; how much time should they dedicate to being with their children in their formative years? Implied in the decision is a choice between career and parenthood, between income and emotional investment. It is a decision that nobody else can make for you. I am continually frustrated that the choice has to be so stark, that by choosing to work flexibly from home it is assumed that parents have to sacrifice career and income, even if they are highly skilled professionals with expertise that, in other circumstances, would be highly valued in the marketplace.

The advent of high speed broadband and online technology such as that which Winweb.com provides should allow someone based at home to operate just as effectively as someone based in an office block, but there remains a vast pool of under-utilised professionals who can’t find the work they need to sustain their career and income while they stay at home to give time and attention to their children.

The reason for this anomaly is market failure. The marketplace is failing to make the link between companies that have a demand for the skills that these home working parents can provide and the workers themselves. We are all aware of agencies that offer the ‘opportunity’ to work from home, but having qualified accountants selling cosmetics or undertaking web-link building work makes no sense when they could be doing accountancy work. It’s time for those that “want to be at-home” parents to be given the opportunity to do the work that befits their qualifications, experience and expertise.

We need the marketplace to be able to communicate information between companies and home-working parents about flexible, project based work that will employ their skills. At present there is no easy marketplace that enables companies to advertise such opportunities and for home working parents to respond with their price for fulfilling such work. In short, there is a demand need and a supply opportunity but the market mechanisms for connecting the two have not yet developed.

This is why I am so excited about an initiative that has been launched by the parents association, www.hiremyparents.com. Our interest in empowering home workers has lead WinWeb to partner with this organization in launching a campaign called “Supporting Parents in Business” which aims to make a start in correcting this market failure. The campaign provides a forum for the exchange by encouraging businesses to access the skills that parents can provide by posting flexible jobs and projects online, free of charge. Parents are then able to assess those tasks they are best placed to fulfil and apply to the business involved.

Throughout the campaign businesses can post full time, part time, casual, job share, temp/contract, freelance and work at home jobs, along with home based business and self employment opportunities on the hiremyparents.com site, all at no cost. Businesses taking part will be able to display the Supporting Parents in Business campaign badge on promotional materials.

Steve Pritchard, co-founder of hiremyparents.com says: “The big idea is to let businesses get very high quality work done by parents working from home. Many people put their careers on hold to bring up children, which can be a huge waste of the skills they have spent years acquiring. This campaign encourages businesses to offer their projects to talented people who will do a great job; they just need to work flexibly.”
Potential employers need to become smarter in packaging the work they need doing, so that it is flexible in its delivery. The thousands of potential employees that are sitting at home are a great seam of talent just waiting to be mined if the work is presented in the correct format. From the legal secretary looking for the odd task; to the journalist ready to commit to a full week’s work from home, the possibilities are rich and varied. From lawyers to data processors, engineers to salesman, writers to social workers, the list is almost endless.

The potential benefits of freeing up the marketplace for the skills of home working parents are enormous. For parents, the potential sacrifice of spending time working at home in order to be more available for their children need not be as stark as at present. They will be able to keep exercising their professional skills to allow them to maintain their career path and a good income stream while still providing the input to their children’s formative years that they desire. For companies, they will have access to skilled professionals who are not carrying the overheads of an organisational superstructure and so will be able to provide good value work quickly and efficiently. The Supporting Parents in Business campaign through www.hiremyparents.com represents a first step towards utilizing these resources efficiently which will eventually also be of significant benefit to the economy as a whole. ●